


how can i move on

by Patrocool (all_the_homo)



Series: but keep moving on till you meet the next day [1]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Introspection, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, erlin and all them are only mentioned, i technially wrote most of it before i knew what happened in the finale and then just edited, so the spoilers if there really is any are super vague, spoilers for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29510205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_the_homo/pseuds/Patrocool
Summary: Beverly Toegold V is a sixteen year old almost-god who can never go back to being a regular teen. For months, he has had a goal and a ticking clock, and now...Now, he doesn't know what to do.Set the night after the fight with Thiala.
Relationships: Erlin Kindleaf/Beverly Toegold V
Series: but keep moving on till you meet the next day [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167821
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	how can i move on

**Author's Note:**

> i only just listened to the finale today after all listening to all 100 episodes during my 8 hour shifts processing covid tests 5 days a week, and boy howdy do i have Feelings. this was written prior to listening to ep 100 and i just edited a few minor things and left the rest, which is why it might seem a bit odd? but this definitely isnt the only fic ill be writing, so
> 
> title is from one of emily's songs from her doomsday diaries album, Survivor's Guilt, aka, The Moon's Lament

It isn’t until after the war is won that it really sinks in.

They knew- of course they did, they knew every step of the way, they were constantly aware- but it didn’t really ever sink in what it meant.

(They couldn’t allow it to sink in, they couldn’t afford that sort of tragedy, couldn’t afford to dwell that they all had a part in killing a child to make a soldier.)

Beverly Toegold V was sixteen years old when he was tasked with the burden of the entire world. He had, of course, grown up around violence, and death, swords and battle, but he had been somehow sheltered from the reality of it, what it actually meant to fight. He was a kid and “war” was a game that he played with his friends, never a real danger but rather a childish rendition mistaken as fantasy.

(When they played war, it was never like this. He was grateful they didn’t understand back then, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty and ashamed all the same- sure, he was just a kid, but why didn’t anyone tell him it wasn’t a goof?)

But as he walks the streets of Gladeholm, watching a funeral on one side of the street with a celebration on the other, he has a sudden realization that there’s no going back now. He can’t just go back to Galaderon and go back to school or the Green Teens or any of that. There’s no going back to how things were. He’s a hero, a titan, the savior of the world, whether he likes it or not.

And, if he’s being perfectly honest, he doesn’t. He never asked for this responsibility, and even now he can feel himself cracking underneath the weight.

Melora’s words echo in his head. _What an honor. What an injustice._

He feels sick to his stomach. He walks.

His chest is tight, his body (especially his legs) ache, his hands shake at his sides and he can’t help but scan his surroundings, like he expects someone to come out of the shadows and kill him.

(That is, of course, exactly what he expects.)

His feet are cold and quiet as they pad along the smooth stones that make the winding streets of the floating island. He hears a Petri wrassling with some youngins, he hears some comforting words followed by the crunching of a medic setting bones, and the pained cry that follows. His skin crawls, and his breath is shallow as he keeps his head down and walks quicker.

It isn’t fair. Only a couple months previous, he was just a little kid in a big world on his way to a Green Teen Jamboree, and now he’s a war veteren, scarred and scared, and he will never be that kid again. His childhood was ripped from him in one fell swoop, and he hadn’t even noticed because he had been so excited to be treated as older than he was.

He would give anything to turn back the clock, to go back to sharing tents with Erlin, Derlin, and Cran, staying up with a Light cantrip and scary stories, to spending an afternoon cooking sticky buns with his mom, or a weekend trip to go fishing with his dad. He’d do anything for his biggest anxiety to be whether or not Erlin liked him back, and not if he would fail and cause the deaths of not only his family and friends but the entire world.

_There is a war coming and everyone will need to fight, even old men who don’t know how._

His aching knees tremble, but Beverly forces himself forward. One foot after the other, silent and with a hand on the hilt of his sword.

(Old habits die hard, and he thinks… Well, he thinks that this is one that’ll probably never go away.)

He glances down at his feet and feels sick. Dried, crusted blood cling to his cracked, brown skin. His soles are just big calluses, and the traditional paint has long faded, barely visible and smeared in certain places.

(He wonders whose blood it is. He wonders if it matters.)

His clothes are stiff with mud and blood too, and his hair is probably in a similar state as well. He needs to bathe, wants to scrub his skin raw until he bleeds and then some, to try to get the stench of war and hate and violence off of him, but he knows that if he stops walking, that’ll be it. 

(There’s an old saying about how sharks can’t stop moving or they die. Beverly can’t remember if it’s true, but does it matter? Metaphor still applies. He’s a vicious, violent predator just trying to survive, and he can’t stop now because if he stops, if he stops--)

Moonshine and Hardwon will be looking for him soon. Probably Erlin and his mom too, maybe even Egwene. Probably others too. But he keeps walking the tightrope, one foot after the other, careful not to look into the hungry abyss underneath him, eager to swallow him whole. 

(The thought of Hell no longer scares him. He’s been there, done that, closed most of the rings off. But he’s grown afraid of just about everything else.)

“How do I go back?” Beverly croaks into the open air, looking up at the sky. 

The stars shine, cold and distant, and the moon is missing from the sky, and Beverly’s chest seizes as he clutches at the fabric over his sternum. 

“How can I possibly-” He chokes and shudders. His steps are faltering, but he forces his feet to keep going, one after the other. One after the other, one after the other, one after the other-

A warm breeze gently presses around him, helping steady his swaying body, and he lets out a slow breath.

“That feels like a sign,” he says to the open air. The gods don’t reply.

His soft footsteps are the only sound as he goes deeper into a part of Gladeholm that isn’t nearly as populated. Most of the residents are closer to the university and such, partaking in whatever was happening there.

He’s quiet though, eyes trained blankly on the road in front of him. One foot in front of the other.

“Where do I go from here?” He tries again, breaking the silence a few minutes later, coming up on a crossroads. How very freaking poetic.

(He almost sends a silent apology to his dad for the cuss, but... Beverly just saved the world. He’s pretty sure he’s well earned the right to openly swear, never mind say “freaking”. He drinks alcohol on a regular basis, and has killed more people in the past few months than most will kill in their lifetimes for P’s sake, he’s pretty sure saying “fuck” every once in a while isn’t anything worth fussing over. But.. Well, he still has yet to be comfortable saying it anyways.)

The night says nothing, but in the distance, he hears the telltale laughter and shouting of Crick elves and dwarves as they wrassle. 

He swallows as his movements slow (but don’t stop), and he sighs with a short nod. Maybe that in itself is the answer he was looking for. “Yeah. Okay, yeah, I mean… Duh.”

He reaches the crossroads, but instead of taking a new direction, he goes back the one he knows, back to the arms he knows will hold him up when he finally has to come to a stop.

(When he gets back to the Stormborn, he finds Moonshine and Hardwon in similar states as him. With a tired smile, Moonshine kisses Beverly’s forehead, and Hardwon scoops him up, and they nudge PawPaw out of the way so they can all curl up in one big bed, and finally rest.)

**Author's Note:**

> kudos make me smile, comments make my day.
> 
> also, anyone have opinions abt a happy death day/groundhogs day time loop set on the day they battle thiala? like a timeloop in which bev keeps waking up the morning of sort of thing but they keep failing to defeat her or something idk. definitely inspired a bit by that one other time loop fic on her, but also nothing like it bc theirs was abt memories an forgetting and stuff. idk i just have Thoughts and if anyone is interested, ill probably write it. if no one is interested, ill still probably write it.


End file.
